NYDailyNews law enforcement source: 'They edited the tape to meet their agenda'
[UPDATED] Rupert Murdoch's NYPost: DA source says tapes 'heavily edited'...
By Brad Friedman on 3/1/2010, 1:27pm PT  

Via Ben Smith at Politico:

ACORN cleared in Brooklyn: 'No criminality'

Kings County, New York District Attorney Joe Hynes put out a statement just now:

On Sept. 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees. The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’ The ‘couple’ later made the recording public. That investigation is now concluded and no criminality has been found.

The New York Daily News adds:

This comes as local ACORNs around the country - including here in New York - have been shuttered and relaunched. The operation in the city is now known as New York Communities for Change.

Well, what a stunner. Still no retraction from you, New York Times? Will you even bother to report this news this time, after failing to report thatformer MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger found the same [PDF] months ago, as did the Congressional Research Service, even as you continued mis-reporting the ACORN "pimp" hoax ever since?

UPDATE: This new post from the NY Daily News seems to indicate the D.A. was able to look at the complete unedited video which Breitbart and O'Keefe have otherwise refused to release publicly (see our Exclusive Video of Breitbart discussing this from earlier today) and found, according to "a law enforcement source", as we've long argued: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda"!...

Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money.

While the video by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.

"They edited the tape to meet their agenda," said the source.

UPDATE 3:24PM ACORN issues a statement following the announcement from the King County, D.A. noting what The BRAD BLOG has been reporting for years:

O'Keefe and the Fox attack machine targeted ACORN because of our successful work to empower hundreds of thousands of low and moderate families as voters and active citizens.

Observers who looked closely at the filmmakers' own transcripts have already noted that O'Keefe presented low level employees with a bogus scenario in which he presented himself as a boyfriend trying to rescue a prostitute from a violent pimp. Although no employees took any actual action to file papers for loans or taxes, ACORN already conducted its own review in order to move forward serving our communities.

Hopefully today's announcement, and similar results from independent reviews, will make politicians and media examine the facts more carefully the next time a valuable community organization is attacked.

Their full statement follows below...


For Immediate Release: March 1, 2010
Contact: Kevin Whelan

Brooklyn DA clears employees portrayed in video scam

On March 1, 2010 The New York Daily News reported that:

Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money.

While the video by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.

"They edited the tape to meet their agenda," said the source.

"On Sept. 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said in a one-paragraph statement issued Monday afternoon. "That investigation is now concluded and no criminality has been found."

ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan issued the following statement on Monday:

O'Keefe and the Fox attack machine targeted ACORN because of our successful work to empower hundreds of thousands of low and moderate families as voters and active citizens.

Observers who looked closely at the filmmakers' own transcripts have already noted that O'Keefe presented low level employees with a bogus scenario in which he presented himself as a boyfriend trying to rescue a prostitute from a violent pimp. Although no employees took any actual action to file papers for loans or taxes, ACORN already conducted its own review in order to move forward serving our communities.

Hopefully today's announcement, and similar results from independent reviews, will make politicians and media examine the facts more carefully the next time a valuable community organization is attacked.

Further background: O'Keefe (who, at the time of the incident, was wearing normal clothes and not the outrageous costumed later edited into his films) was later arrested after an attempt to tamper with phone lines at Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. He and his sponsors have declined to release the unedited video tapes to the public or other investigators.

ACORN, an anti-poverty group, came under attack from Republicans after it helped millions of mostly minority and low-income citizens apply to register to vote. In recent years ACORN has helped families prepare 150,000 free tax returns and obtain $190 million in tax refunds in the last five years and worked for decades to promote neighborhood safety and homeownership.

UPDATE 3/4/10: Even Rupert Murdoch's NYPost covers the scam (in three grafs total, but still...):

ACORN set up by vidiots: DA

The video that unleashed a firestorm of criticism on the activist group ACORN was a "heavily edited" splice job that only made it appear as though the organization's workers were advising a pimp and prostitute on how to get a mortgage, sources said yesterday.

The findings by the Brooklyn DA, following a 5½-month probe into the video, secretly recorded by conservative provocateurs James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, means that no charges will be filed.

Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said.

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